CHAPTER XIX.

TORTURE OF THE YEARLINGS.

Imagine, if you can, the state of mind of the agonized four when the import of those terrible words burst upon them. They were locked in! And tied, each one of them, so that they could not move a hand to help themselves! The darkness made the whole thing yet more awful. They were entombed alive! And suffocating! Already the air seemed to grow hot, their breath to come in choking gasps. They screamed aloud, fairly shrieked in agony. They tore at their bonds, beat upon the wall with their helpless hands and feet. And all the while outside their cries were answered by the equally terrified shouts of the plebes.

“Let us out! Let us out!” shrieked Bull.

“Can’t you get loose?” they heard a voice reply; they recognized it as Mallory’s. “Oh, man, you must get loose! Try! Try! We can’t help you! There’s a knob inside there! Turn it, turn it, and the door’ll open.”

“How can I turn it?” screamed Bull. “I can’t get near it! I’m tied! I--oh, merciful Heaven help me! We’re suffocating.”

The cries from the yearlings increased in terror; outside they heard the blows of a pickax beating against the wall. Their hearts bounded in hope; they gasped in suspense; but then suddenly the sound ceased.

“I can’t do a thing!” It was Texas who spoke. “The walls are too hard. We can’t help them, they’re gone.”

“And we!” cried Mark. “Fellows, we’re murderers!”

“Who knows of this yere place?” demanded Texas. “Nobody’ll ever find ’em. Fellers, let’s go back to camp and swear we never saw ’em.”

“Oh, don’t leave us! Don’t leave us!” wailed Bull. “Oh! oh!”

The others joined in with their horrified shrieks, but they might as well have cried to the stones. They heard rapidly receding footsteps, and even a heartless, triumphant laugh. And a moment later there was nothing left but stone for the agonized yearlings to cry to.

The six conspirators outside, having retreated to a far corner of the cave, to talk over the success of their ruse, were considering that last mentioned point then. Indian, ever tender-hearted and nervous, wanted to let them out now, he was sure they’d dropped dead of fright; all their vociferous yells from the distance could not persuade him otherwise.

“Bless my soul!” he whispered, in an awe-stricken voice. “They’ll suffocate.”

“Not for an hour in that spacious compartment,” said the scientific Parson.

“Anyhow, I say we let ’em out,” pleaded Indian.

“An’ I say we don’t!” growled Texas. “That air feller Bull Harris jes’ deserves to be left thar fo’ good! An’ I wouldn’t mind doin’ it, either.”

Texas was usually a very mild and kind-hearted youth, but he was wont to get wroth over the very name of Harris.

“That ole yearlin’s been the cause o’ all our trouble an’ hazin’ since we come hyar!” he cried. “Ever since the day Mark caught him trying to bully a young girl, an’ knocked him down fo’ it, he’s tried everything but murder. He’s too much a coward to fight fair, but he’s laid fo’ us and pitched in to lick us with his gang every time he’s seen us alone. He’s sent Dewey and you, Mark, to the hospital! He got the yearlin’s to take Mark out in the woods an’ beat him.

“An’ he got up that air dirty scheme to skin Mark on demerits; he did all the demeritin’, besides the beatin’. An’ he put up a plot to git Mark out o’ bounds and dismissed. An’ now I say let him stay there till he’s too durnation scared to walk!”

This sentiment was the sentiment of the rest; but Mark smiled when he heard it.

“I think,” he said, “it’s punishment enough to stay in there a minute. We’ll have to let them out pretty soon.”

“An’ ain’t you goin’ to work the other scheme?” cried Texas.

“We’ll work that now,” responded Mark, whispering. “See, there’s the light, anyway.”

This last remark was caused by a glance he had taken in the direction of the dungeon. A faint glimmer of light appeared in a crack at the top of the old, fast-falling door. And Mark arose and crept swiftly across the room.

We must go inside now and see what was going on there, for that light was destined to bring a new and startling development for the yearlings; it was what Texas had called “the other scheme.”

To picture the horror of the abandoned four during the few moments that had elapsed is beyond our effort. Suffice it to say, that they were still shrieking, still despairing and yet daring to hope. And then came the new scheme.

The silence and blackness had both been unbroken except by them; but suddenly came a faint, spluttering, crackling sound. And an instant later a faint, white light shone about the narrow cell. It came from right in front of the horrified four, seeming to start in some ghostly way of its own to issue from a shining ball of no one could say what. But it was not the light, it was what it showed that terrified the cadets, and made them give vent to one last despairing shriek.

In the first place, let it be said that the light came from an inverted basket hiding a candle, set off by a time fuse the ingenious Parson had made. As for the rest, well, there were six gleaming skeletons stretched about on the floor of that horrible place, the skulls grinning frightfully, seeming to leer at the helpless victims.

The four were incapable of the least sound; their tongues were paralyzed, and their bodies too. Their eyes fairly started from their heads as they stared. They were beyond the possibility of further fright, and what came next seemed natural.

Those skeletons began to move!

First one round, white head, with its shining black holes of eyes and rows of glistening teeth, began to roll slowly across the floor. Then it sailed up into the air; then it dropped slowly down again, and finally settled in one corner and grinned out at the gasping cadets.

“Wasn’t that smart of me?” it seemed to say. “I’ll do it again. Watch me now. Watch!”

And it sailed up into the air once more, and swung about in the blackness and went over toward the prisoners and then started back. Finally it tumbled down to the ground, hitting its own original bones with a hollow crack. And then it was still.

That head was not the only moving thing in the cell. One skeleton raised its long, trembling arm and pointed at them; another’s legs rattled across the floor. And a fourth one seemed to spring up all at once, as though it had dozens of loose bones, and hurl itself with a clatter into one corner. It lay there a scattered heap, with only one lone white rib to mark the place where it had been.

That was the way it seemed to the yearlings; of course, they did not see the black threads that ran through cracks in the door, where the six could stand and jerk them at their pleasure.

It was all over a moment later. The four heard a knob turn, and then, to their amazement, saw the iron door, which they had thought would never open on them alive, swing back and let in a flood of glorious light. And an instant later the familiar and even welcome figure of Mallory came in.

He stepped up to each and quickly cut the ropes that hound them. And when all four were free he stepped back and gazed at them. As for them, they never moved a muscle, but stared at him in consternation and confusion.

“Come out, gentlemen,” said Mark. “Come out and make yourselves at home.”

That voice was real, anyway, thank Heaven for that! The four had not yet succeeded in recovering their wits enough to realize the state of affairs. They followed Mark mechanically, though they were scarcely able to stand. They found themselves in the well-lit and furnished apartment, the rest of their enemies bowing cordially. Then indeed they began to realize the hoax, its success, the way they had been fooled! And they staggered back against the wall.

The silence lasted a minute at least, and then Mark stepped forward.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I hope you understand why we did this. It may seem cruel, but we could think of no other way of bringing you to your senses. We could have done much more if we had wanted to; but, we trust this will be a lesson that----”

“Confound you!” snarled Bull.

“Steady,” said Mark, smiling, “or in there you go again.”

That suggestion alone made Bull shiver, and he ventured not another sound.

“And now,” said Mark, “if you will let us, we will conduct you back to camp. And all I want to say besides is, the next time you want to haze, try fair, open tactics. If you try any more sneaking plots I shall not show the mercy I did this time. Come on.”

Some ten minutes later the four were poked through the crevice in the rocks again, and led blind-folded to the boats and to camp. Which was the end of that adventure. But Bull Harris vowed he’d get square, and that very soon.